What is the future of aquaculture in the United Kingdom?

Abstract

Sailing the seas of the world in the hunt for fish was once an idyll of wooden boats, life
threatening journeys and luck. The story is now a 'game of cat and mouse' using steel boats,
nets with hundreds of tonnes capacity and radars to pin point schools of fish. It is arguably
due to this increase in technology, consumer demand, governance and competition that sees
the world of plentiful fish as a story of yesteryear.
Although the rivers and seas have been a resourceful supply of fish, it is in recent decades
that the world can see and, perhaps more importantly acknowledge, that wild fish stock
numbers are diminishing. There are various species (such as tuna, cod, orange roughy,
marlin, shark, turtles and many, many more) within the oceans that are under threat by
current fishing amounts and methods, and their populations in the sea have been in steady
decline. This situation offers an opportunity for man-kind to 'limit' its reliance on the seas and
offer the chance to breed marine species as a form of husbandry (similar to modern farming
methods used with other domesticated animals such as; sheep, chickens, cows and pigs), in
order to provide the human population with highly nutritious seafood without harming the
oceans and its inhabitants. This paper will look into one alternative to fishing, it is known as
aquaculture.
Aquaculture, is also known as 'fish farming' or an alternative perspective could be; the
aquatic equivalent to agriculture. The process involves the enclosure of fish (this includes
around 220 species of finfish and shellfish) in a secure system under which they can thrive
(Naylor et al., 2000). There are however, many issues raised by governing bodies regarding
the industrialised processes, political interest and of course the welfare of sea life. This
project will look at the United Kingdom (UK) as case study for the future to see if there is an
economical industry and a reliable, non-damaging source of food for people in the UK.